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Eike Batista's new book: tips to become just as rich as he is.

For someone who claims to have achieved multimillionaire status by the age 23, billionaire Eike Batista probably knows a thing or two about getting rich. Currently listed by Forbes as the 8th richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated at $30 billion, Batista makes no ceremony about his biggest aim in life: to become the richest individual on the planet, a title that's currently held by Mexico's Carlos Slim, who's worth $74 billion as of our latest count from early March.

In the meantime, while the Brazilian billionaire's crusade to outrun Slim continues (due to market uncertainty, both men have lost considerable amounts of money over the past few months), Batista decided to share some of his Midas touch knowledge by publishing a book, "Eike Batista's X Factor -- The Path of Brazil's Biggest Entrepreneur" ("Eike Batista, O X Da Questão - A Trajetória Do Maior Empreendedor Do Brasil," in its original title in Portuguese).

Although the book is not an autobiography -- in its introduction, Batista explains that his official biography is already being written by the New York Times' Alan Riding -- he shares a lot of his personal views on business and money, beginning with the title's use of the "X" letter, his favorite from the alphabet, in all of his companies' names. It's meant to suggest the multiplication of wealth.

Most of his business savvy, he explains, was learned under pressure, sometimes from deeper issues dating back to his childhood. During his early teens, Batista used to suffer from asthma. That's when his mother, who was German, decided to enroll him in swimming lessons, making sure he would complete his training every day in a heated pool. "That made me really anxious, but in less than a year I was cured. And then I learned one simple lesson: you grow as a person when you face your own challenges."

Batista also acknowledges that there are a lot of self-help books out there promising to make its readers into multimillionaires in the blink of an eye, but, in most cases, these books were written by people who never really made a million dollars themselves. "People know what I've done. I'm the world's most versatile business man. I've built 20 different multi-billion businesses in different areas, beginning from scratch. That's a huge incentive for people to buy my book," Batista says.